Andrew MacKenzie

ADVENTURES IN TIME

Encounters with the past

Andrew MacKenzie presents a number of cases of apparent retrocognition;
that is, hallucinatory perception of past places and buildings,
sometimes with the associated people. Whatever one may think of the
antecedent probability or possibility of such things, this is a serious
study. As Alan Gauld points out in his introduction, MacKenzie's
treatment of his subject is far from sensationalist. He analyses the
reports critically and considers all possible "normal" explanations;
some of the reports, in fact, he concludes can be attributed to
misperception or mis-remembering. Not all, however.

Some of the cases, such as the well-known "Versailles adventure", are
fairly old, but others are more recent and some of these MacKenzie was
able to investigate personally. This is true of the first case in the
book, which concerns the experience of three youths from a Royal Navy
shore training establishment in Suffolk. While on an exercise the boys
visited the village of Kersey and apparently saw it as it was several
hundred years in the past. While the experience was taking place they
appeared to be in an altered state of consciousness; the air was very
still and the village was completely silent and deserted. The experience
was both frightening and depressing.

In 1988 MacKenzie was able to trace two of the percipients, who
were now both living in Australia and provided detailed accounts of what
happened. The third percipient was also traced but could remember
nothing at all about the matter. The member of the group with the
clearest recollection, a Mr Laing, eventually came to Britain and
revisited the scene with MacKenzie.

The "Versailles adventure", in which two English ladies at the turn of
the twentieth century apparently saw Versailles as it was in the time of
Marie Antoinette, is discussed in some detail. Many critics have
dismissed this episode as based on misperception, but MacKenzie makes it
clear that there is more to the story than is sometimes realized. In
particular, other people apparently had similar experiences at
Versailles quite independently at about the same time.

The other cases discussed in the book mostly concern the apparent
perception of buildings that were not there. In some instances there had
been a building at some time in the past, but in others it could be
established that no such building had ever existed. In at least some of
the reports mis-remembering the location of houses seen at night or in a
fatigued condition seems to be an adequate explanation.

What is one to make of all this bizarre material? Critics will no doubt
say that "normal" explanations are available for all of it and that it
does not merit serious consideration. I think, however, that this is too
dismissive; there seems no good reason to doubt that some people have
reported strange experiences, which MacKenzie refers to throughout,
uncompromisingly, as hallucinations. This is confirmed by the altered
state of consciousness, including the absence of sound, often reported
by the percipients. But do these experiences have any relevance to
reality?

I am not myself convinced that anyone actually witnessed the past in an
objective sense. But what is particularly interesting about these
hallucinations is that in at least some of the cases there was more than
one percipient. Both saw more or less the same scene, although there
were sometimes differences, such as figures perceived by one person but
not by another. Joint hallucinations of this kind are rare and difficult
to explain on any normal theory of brain function.

MacKenzie does believe that at least some of the cases he discusses
provide evidence of retrocognition. He permits himself a little
speculation about the possible basis for such a thing, drawing on ideas
current in modern physics about the nature of time. Julian Barbour's
theory that time does not exist would certainly have been relevant here
but his book was published after this one.

As in all investigations of this kind, one is left at the end with more
questions than answers. But anyone with a liking for the more outlandish
byways of psychology will find the book interesting.